Seattle schools sue TikTok, Meta over mental health concerns

The Seattle Public School system has filed a lawsuit against social media giants, together with TikTok and Facebook, claiming that the platforms are a “substantial issue in inflicting a youth psychological well being crisis.”

The school system filed its 91-page lawsuit in district courts in Washington state late final week. The schools allege that a number of tech companies violated the state’s public nuisance law.

The plaintiffs don’t appear to have a particular firm or platform in thoughts for his or her complaint. The lawsuit includes YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, in addition to their parent companies, Google, Meta, and ByteDance.

“Defendants have efficiently exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of scholars throughout the nation into positive suggestions loops of extreme use and abuse of Defendants’ social media platforms,” reads an excerpt from the complaint.

Interestingly, the school system isn’t claiming that these platforms ought to be accountable for what’s posted by third parties.

Instead, the plaintiffs declare that these platforms “affirmatively recommend and promote dangerous content material to youth.”

The impact of social platforms on the youth has been a main query in recent years. TikTok is seemingly under fixed investigation over its impact on children and the identical goes for Meta.

Additionally, YouTube was called out a few months in the past for suggesting drug and gun movies on the particular YouTube Kids app.

This lawsuit will likely drag on for some time with out a decision. However, continued pressure like this may require tech companies to revisit how they deal with children on their platforms.